Towards an increase in the price of the canteen at the start of the school year

VS’is additional bad news looming for parents of students. Faced with the galloping inflation of recent weeks, some communities are reluctant to increase the prices of school canteens, reports France Info. As a reminder, catering in primary schools is managed by the municipalities while the departments manage the colleges and the regions the high schools. Local authorities are free to set the prices of meals in establishments.

Community suppliers have warned communities that inflation will likely force them to raise their prices. It is up to the localities to pass on this additional cost, or not, to schools. “Suppliers wrote to us to tell us that the indexation measures provided for in the markets were not sufficient and that it was necessary to implement the theory of unpredictability”, which makes it possible to renegotiate the terms in the event of a situation unpredictable economy indicates, to France Info, Philippe Laurent, vice-president of the Association of Mayors of France (AMF) and mayor of Sceaux.

5-10% increase

Communities will therefore have to negotiate with their suppliers, but the price of meals should experience an increase “of the order of 5 to 10%”, according to Philippe Laurent. The question is: who will absorb these increases? Some cities will choose to finance these increases by themselves so as not to weigh on families, this is particularly the case of the city of Ajaccio. Philippe Laurent recalls, however, that some municipalities are faced with a drop in their tax revenue with the abolition of the housing tax. The latter will have no choice but to increase the price of meals in school canteens. About half of the municipalities should opt for this track, according to the expectations of the vice-president of the AMF.

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